Autonomous systems operating in militarily-relevant environments are valuable assets due to the increased situational awareness they provide to the Warfighter. To further advance the current state of these systems, a collaborative experiment was conducted as part of the Safe Operations of Unmanned Systems for Reconnaissance in Complex Environments (SOURCE) Army Technology Objective (ATO). We present the findings from this large-scale experiment which spanned several research areas, including 3D mapping and exploration, communications maintenance, and visual intelligence. For 3D mapping and exploration, we evaluated loop closure using Iterative Closest Point (ICP). To improve current communications systems, the limitations of an existing mesh network were analyzed. Also, camera data from a Microsoft Kinect was used to test autonomous stairway detection and modeling algorithms. This paper will detail the experiment procedure and the preliminary results for each of these tests.

Date Published: 17 May 2013
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 8741, Unmanned Systems Technology XV, 87410X (17 May 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2016284

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8741:
Unmanned Systems Technology XV
Robert E. Karlsen; Douglas W. Gage; Charles M. Shoemaker; Grant R. Gerhart, Editor(s)